Twilight writing at dawn

Aren't we always, for all we know to the contrary, living "in the immediate face of death"? Shouldn't we always write "like [our] lives depend on it"? Aren't those the authors we should be reading and emulating, even those of us who prefer to think and write in the early hours and in HDT's "infinite expectation of the dawn"?

"…any description of the cosmos is provisional; more is always left to be said. This is not a cause for frustration, but rather hope that another inning of the world is about to begin.

Over the years we have known many authors who work into their dying days. One thing strikes us clearly: those who write in the immediate face of death tend to do so like their lives depend on it. This is not to say that they choose the most important topics, in any objective sense, but rather that they tend to choose topics which are vitally important in the context of their own fleeting lives. Twilight writing has a certain revelatory power. It can show a reader what has always been, or is most forcefully, on an author's mind."
— John Kaag, Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James 

A lot of Internet-platformed writing, it occurs to me, fails to reveal any urgent sense of vital importance on the authors' parts. A lot of it is frivolous. A lot of it seems to presuppose all the time in the world. We don't have that, not as singular authors and not as finite living beings.

And yet, the sun is a morning star. Even at twilight. Writing in the face of personal death doesn't mean writing in a panic, or in an attitude of gloom. It does mean not wasting so damn much time on what does not finally matter.